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To me, the quote and your questions seem like different concepts Regarding your questions: There is a difference between intellectual knowledge and experience

by nico 3y ago

To me, the quote and your questions seem like different concepts Regarding your questions: There is a difference between intellectual knowledge and experience Sometimes the concept of gnosis is used to differentiate them So for example, you can read a book about riding a bike, maybe the book is very detailed and tells you everything there is to “know” about riding a bike, but unless you actually ride a bike, you can never “truly know” (experience) what riding a bike is Now regarding our perception and the universe: We live in the universe, we are part of it, we can’t ever separate ourselves from it Then how would we ever be able to remove our perception from it? It’s impossible to truly know Of course we can speculate and we can come up with endless ideas, but we can never truly know anything that we don’t experience In that sense, even our ideas are mediated through our inner perception of them And of course this is my own subjective perception of my reality, as it is all I have

tsimionescu 3y ago
> So for example, you can read a book about riding a bike, maybe the book is very detailed and tells you everything there is to “know” about riding a bike, but unless you actually ride a bike, you can never “truly know” (experience) what riding a bike is This is often asserted, but I don't see any reason to believe it is true. Just like we can picture creatures that have never existed, and even draw elaborate images of them, with enough detail and introspection we can picture an experience. And even if we really couldn't, this would at best be a limitation of our wiring, there would be no reason to think it's a limitation of any conscious being. After all, a computer is perfectly able to simulate itself and to simulate any input it could receive, so it can clearly simulate any possible experience it could have given enough details. By the same token, the fact that we can't control our optic nerves (nor other senses) as precisely is an accident of our genetic makeup, not some fundamental property.
- nico 3y ago
  > we can picture an experience Picture it, but not experience it, it’s two different things Whether our own perception is an accident of our genetic makeup or a fundamental property doesn’t really matter, it’s still the only way we can ever experience the world
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    First, I would still challenge the idea that there is a fundemantal difference for us between picturing an experience and actually experiencing it. It will probably vary by experience, but at least things like "how would it feel to watch my loved ones die" can be experienced even if it doesn't happen, with enough introspection. And this very much does matter for certain arguments about consciousness. If qualia are separate from thoughts but only through an accident of our own human minds' construction, then all arguments that rely on qualia to argue consciousness must be un physical (Chalmers likes these a lot) are obviously invalid.
jayd16 3y ago
Hmm I think we've moved the goal post from "know anything" to "truly know" (whatever that means).
- nico 3y ago
  I said it’s two different things, and explained why/how Now, if you actually have something interesting to add to the conversation, please do
  - jayd16 3y ago
    I'm just trying to understand what you're saying because you yourself used the words "know anything". So if your comment is not about knowledge but only experience then all you are saying is a simple tautology, ie the only way to experience something is to experience it. This really doesn't hit on the nature of experience or how it is similar or different from knowledge. Could a memory of an experience be implanted? Yes, such things happen. We experience imaginary things in dreams as well. It seems problematic to conflate experience and knowledge, which you seem to be doing even while admitting they are different. You seem to argue that experience is a truer form of knowledge but I would push back and argue they are tangential.

by nico 3y ago

tsimionescu 3y ago

> So for example, you can read a book about riding a bike, maybe the book is very detailed and tells you everything there is to “know” about riding a bike, but unless you actually ride a bike, you can never “truly know” (experience) what riding a bike is This is often asserted, but I don't see any reason to believe it is true. Just like we can picture creatures that have never existed, and even draw elaborate images of them, with enough detail and introspection we can picture an experience. And even if we really couldn't, this would at best be a limitation of our wiring, there would be no reason to think it's a limitation of any conscious being. After all, a computer is perfectly able to simulate itself and to simulate any input it could receive, so it can clearly simulate any possible experience it could have given enough details. By the same token, the fact that we can't control our optic nerves (nor other senses) as precisely is an accident of our genetic makeup, not some fundamental property.

nico 3y ago
> we can picture an experience Picture it, but not experience it, it’s two different things Whether our own perception is an accident of our genetic makeup or a fundamental property doesn’t really matter, it’s still the only way we can ever experience the world
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  First, I would still challenge the idea that there is a fundemantal difference for us between picturing an experience and actually experiencing it. It will probably vary by experience, but at least things like "how would it feel to watch my loved ones die" can be experienced even if it doesn't happen, with enough introspection. And this very much does matter for certain arguments about consciousness. If qualia are separate from thoughts but only through an accident of our own human minds' construction, then all arguments that rely on qualia to argue consciousness must be un physical (Chalmers likes these a lot) are obviously invalid.

jayd16 3y ago

Hmm I think we've moved the goal post from "know anything" to "truly know" (whatever that means).

nico 3y ago
I said it’s two different things, and explained why/how Now, if you actually have something interesting to add to the conversation, please do
- jayd16 3y ago
  I'm just trying to understand what you're saying because you yourself used the words "know anything". So if your comment is not about knowledge but only experience then all you are saying is a simple tautology, ie the only way to experience something is to experience it. This really doesn't hit on the nature of experience or how it is similar or different from knowledge. Could a memory of an experience be implanted? Yes, such things happen. We experience imaginary things in dreams as well. It seems problematic to conflate experience and knowledge, which you seem to be doing even while admitting they are different. You seem to argue that experience is a truer form of knowledge but I would push back and argue they are tangential.